Government wants its rare penny back

La Jolla men had hoped to sell unique aluminum coin for $250K

A close-up of the 1974-D aluminum cent. Coin experts say they believe only 10 of these coins were minted in Denver and all of them were believed to have been destroyed. The coin discovered by Michael McConnell and Randy Lawrence is the only one of its kind in the world.
— Michael McConnell

A close-up of the 1974-D aluminum cent. Coin experts say they believe only 10 of these coins were minted in Denver and all of them were believed to have been destroyed. The coin discovered by Michael McConnell and Randy Lawrence is the only one of its kind in the world.
/ Michael McConnell

The two friends, brought together by serendipity and an extremely rare penny, were going to auction the coin later this month and donate part of the proceeds to charity. The one-of-a-kind 1974-D aluminum penny was expected to fetch $250,000 or more.

But now the U.S. government wants it back.

A lawyer for the United States Mint sent a letter to the men in February stating that because the aluminum penny was never issued as legal tender, the coin remains property of the federal government, regardless of how long it was in private hands.

Lawrence, a real estate agent, inherited the penny from his father in 1980. He recently sold it to McConnell, owner of the La Jolla Coin Shop, who later uncovered the penny’s history and notified Lawrence.

Now the men are taking the issue to federal court. They filed a lawsuit last month seeking a judgment from the court declaring that they, not the government, are the coin’s true owners.

Meanwhile, plans to auction the penny remain on hold.

“No one really is surprised these days when the government tries to overreach,” said attorney Armen Vartian, who represents the two men. “You just don’t think it’s going to happen to you.”

According to the complaint, the coin at the center of this dispute is beyond rare.

Hundreds of 1974 aluminum coins were minted as part of a proposal to replace copper pennies, but Congress ultimately decided against them, and the remaining coins at the Philadelphia Mint were melted down.

Others had been distributed around Washington D.C., primarily to government officials including then-Sen. Joe Biden, who received two of them. Most were collected and destroyed.

The coin at issue was minted in Denver, where Lawrence lived before moving to La Jolla last year. His father had worked at the Denver Mint for about 20 years.

“While it is rumored that only a dozen or so Aluminum Cents were minted at the Denver Mint, only Plaintiff’s specimen is known to exist at this time,” the complaint says.

Vartian said the government’s effort to claim the penny after 40 years is unreasonable.

“My clients love their country, but they don’t necessarily always agree with it,” he said.

The U.S Attorney’s Office, which has not yet filed a response to the complaint, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Vartian said his clients consigned the coin in January to a rare coin auction company, which has been shopping it around to potential buyers in advance of an auction to be held April 24 in the Chicago area.

The coin has since been withdrawn from the auction because of the dispute.

Vartian said the only time the government has previously taken legal action to recover a coin was with 1933 $20 gold pieces, which, like the aluminum pennies, were never issued as legal tender. But the only coins ever recovered by the government were traceable to illegal activity.